Sadly, that's not code Linus wrote. Nor one he merged. (It's from git, copied from rsync, committed by Junio)
this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
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here you go, linux 0.01
Isn't that from 1991 while the quote is from 1995? If we're nitpicking maybe we shouldn't time travel 🤓
Damn it Time Patrol! You can't stop me!
- Time Troll
I mean it was 0.01, at that point he was screwed anyway, and he fixed his program.
He wouldn't make that statement unless he experienced the horror himself.
Now, if he still does it these days...
I've heard similar from the worst first year CS students you could ever meet. People talk out their ass without the experience to back up their observations constantly. The indentation thing is a reasonable heuristic that states you are adding too much complexity at specific points in your code that suggests you should isolate core pieces of logic into discrete functions. And while that's broadly reasonable, this often has the downside of you producing code that has a lot of very small, very specific functions that are only ever invoked by other very small, very specific functions. It doesn't make your code easier to read or understand and it arguably leads to scenarios in which your code becomes very disorganized and needlessly opaque purely because you didn't want additional indentation in order to meet some kind of arbitrary formatting guideline you set for yourself. This is something that happens in any language but some languages are more susceptible to it than others. PEP8's line length limit is treated like biblical edict by your more insufferable python developers.
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line 152 is the only thing past 3 levels and I'd say that one gets a pass.
You really think someone would do that? Just go on the internet and tell lies?
Plus it shows three levels of indentation. Well... there is the extra one created by the compiler directives, but do they really count?
rules aren't there to be enforced, they're there so that when you break them you take a second to think about why.
I didn't know why, but *++p bugs me
Perhaps *(p += 1) will be to your liking?
Much better... but can we make it *((void*)(p = p + 1))?
How about some JavaScript p+=[]**[]?
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p = 1
x = ++p
// x = 2
// p = 2
p = 1
x = p++
// x = 1
// p = 2
++p will increase the value and return the new value
p++ will increase the value and return the old value
I think p = p + 1 is the same as p++ and not as ++p.
No?
In C an assignment is an expression where the value is the new value of what was being assigned to.
In a = b = 1, both a and b will be 1.
a = *(p = p + 1)
is the same as
p += 1
a = *p
, so ++p.
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welcome to C
That *++ operator from C is indeed confusing.
Reminds me of the goes-to operator: --> that you can use as:
while(i --> 0) {That's not a real operator. You've put a space in "i--" and removed the space in "-- >". The statement is "while i-- is greater than zero". Inventing an unnecessary "goes to" operator just confuses beginners and adds something else to think about while debugging.
And yes I have seen beginners try to use <-- and --<. Just stop it.
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Why is multiple levels of indentation bad?
IDK, but if the reason is "to break stuff into multiple functions", then I'm not necessarily writing yet another single-use function just to avoid writing a comment, especially in time critical applications. Did that with a text parser that could get text formatting from a specifically written XML file, but mainly due to it being way less time critical, and had a lot of reused code via templates.
Like with everything, context matters. Sometimes it can indicate poorly structured control flow, other times inefficient loop nesting. But many times it is just somebody’s preference for guard clauses. As long as the intent is clear, there are no efficiency problems, and it is possible to reach the fewest branches necessary, I see no issues.
It's important to remember that Linus is primarily writing about C code formatting. C doesn't have things that tend to create more deeply nested structures, such as a formal class syntax, or nested functions.
Going too deep is still bad--as zea notes, it's an indication of control structures run amok--but the exact number is dependent on the language and the context.
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Indentation implies there's some control structure causing it. Too many control structures nested gets hard to mentally keep track of. 3 is arbitrary, but in general more indentation => harder to understand, which is bad.
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One nit: whatever IDE is displaying single-character surrogates for == and != needs to stop. In a world where one could literally type those Unicode symbols in, and break a build, I think everyone is better off seeing the actual syntax.
I think it's a lineature. FiraCide does that for example, and I like it very much. My compiler and lsp will tell me if there is a bad char there. Besides, the linea tires take the same space as two regular characters, so you can tell the difference.
It's not the 90s anymore. My editor can look nice.
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In a world where your IDE and maybe also compiler should warn you about using unicode literals in source code, that's not much of a concern.
VSCode (and I'm sure other modern IDEs, but haven't tested) will call out if you're using a Unicode char that could be confused with a source code symbol (e.g. i and ℹ️, which renders in some fonts as a styled lowercase i without color). I'm sure it does the same on the long equals sign.
Any compiler will complain (usually these days with a decent error message) if someone somehow accidentally inserts an invalid Unicode character instead of typing ==.
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While I totally agree with that philosophy, it heavily depends on the language.
For Rust, my philosophy is more like this:
- Impl + fn body don't count, as well as async blocks if they span the whole function
- do not nest more than one if statement. You probably better using guard clauses or matches
- do not put loops into an if statement.
- do not nest loops unless clearly shown to be (X, Y) indexing
- method chaining is free
- do not nest closures, unless the nested closure doesn't have a {} block
- do not use mod unless it's test for the current module. No I don't want to Star Wars scroll your 1000 line file. Split it.
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Broad generalizations aren't for the people who make them, they're for the suckers who consistently fall for them
This posts entire comment chain is an interesting example of people that have extensive knowledge in completely different areas of programming to me. And have some concepts I had never heard/thought of.
My personal code readability axe to grind is nested complex ternary operators.
Every now and then I'll see something like this
return (checkFormatType(currentObject.type==TYPES.static||currentObject type==TYPES.dynamic?TYPES.mutable:TYPES.immutable)?create format("MUTABLE"):getFormat(currentObject));
And I have a fucking conniption because just move that shit into a variable before the return. I get it when sometimes you just need to resolve something inline, but a huge amount of the time that ternary can be extracted to a variable before the ternary, or just rewrite the function to take multiple types and resolve it in the function.
That example looks like the PowerShell equivalent of piping complex things around 20 times before actually doing something with the results.
no but bro, the code complexity tool says that this scope has 14 complexity instead of 13, we gotta cram it in a single ternary for code legibility
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The number one thing that gets in my way of refactoring to function is figuring out what to name the functions takes too long.
Then perhaps the code you are trying to extract doesn't make a clear and cohesive procedure. Maybe include more or less of the code, or rework the code into logical pieces or steps. Write the algorithm in human language first, then implement the steps using functions.
🤷♂️ Or fnck it.
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You get one level at the get go because everything is in a function. So just two levels of indentation? A pretty basic if.. for..if nesting has to be refactored? Into what? Goto? Should I sprinkle return statements all over the place?
Y’all gotta understand that Linus is often kind of an ass.
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